


It Could Happen

by feifiefofum



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2012-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-11 02:59:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feifiefofum/pseuds/feifiefofum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I figured these weren't too far from the realm of possibility. Most of it's gonna be about bb and rae. I'll throw in star rob and even cy, I swear. I don't give cy enough love, but I'm working on it! Honest!<br/>Wait, I still have more room to elaborate? What the- you know what, these are just going to be one shots that I got around to typing up about my favorite superheroes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Raven: a diluted ray's tale

Started: 03/07/2007

Finished: 03/07/2007

Author's Note: A one-shot thing, so don't expect anymore y'all.

Summary: Raven wasn't always a Goth… scary thought, eh? And the way he was calling her Rae wasn't helping matters.

Raven: A Diluted Ray's Tale

Raven hated how he called her Rae.

She knew it was unintentional this way he called her Rae. It had to be on the subconscious level. It had to be. No one in their right minds should ever call her that like that. She was the Goth of their little quintet, not the sprightly sunbeam that brought oodles of joy and warm fuzzy feelings to all.

No, she was supposed to be the Goth: the dark creepy one, the black sorceress, the vile half demon- not some cheery beam of diluted radiance.

But the way he said it… it brought back all the memories of what she once was. It brought back to the fore all the cheeriness that was Rachel before she truly understood her role as the Gem, the Portal, the Gate from which the End will Walk the World.

Raven is not a Goth by choice. It is a difficult concept to wrap one's mind about but ultimately true. She was not and is not a Goth by choice. She is a Goth because she needs to be a Goth. She needs the cynicism to be detached; a pessimist doesn't care about feelings so she won't either.

But the way he says Rae, that soft caress, the wild, unbridled joy that he puts into that one syllable… it was enchanting, powerful, moving. It brought back all of that optimistically daft happiness that was Rachel Roth. And it scares the hell out of her.

How can one syllable do that? How can one arbitrary syllable articulate all that happiness in the world and imply that she was its source, its harbinger?

Sure, Cyborg calls her Rae. But Cyborg is laughing at the idea of Rae being a ray of sunshine. Him, he laughs because he's greeting her, greeting gladness with pleasure. That wild little bark of bliss at her presence is befuddling.

She was- no, is marginally a die-hard optimist. Happy-go-lucky was the best term to describe little Rachel and, to some extent, Raven. How can you not be happy-go-lucky when you're told that you will destroy the world on your sixteenth birthday (hell, she'd be hard pressed to lose her virginity at that rate! … that thought did not occur to her until she was fourteen…) and not seriously consider suicide? No, Rachel and Raven were die-hard optimists. That was not to say she hadn't contemplated suicide. She had, once or twice, but never too seriously. That was how optimistic she was. In fact she was too optimistic and her powers fair destroyed Azarath with the hope that filled her little heart. So she had to find a way to dampen that happiness- that hope. She had to find a balance.

So when she came to the world that she was supposed to destroy, providence must have been on her side to put her in the path of a pair of Goths. They oohed and ahhed at her pale skin and the violet pigmentation of her hair and eyes. She asked these funny people with white face paint and dark clothes what exactly a Goth was. They enthusiastically explained what Gothic culture was like (well as enthusiastic as a Goth can get anyway). It was perfect.

There had been little need for her to alter her wardrobe: the monks (and nuns) of Azarath had tried to induce a sense of gravity into little Raven (they even changed her name) to try to calm her overflowing cheeriness. It did little good. Gothic culture held a flare of something to young Raven that drew her to it, though she had no notion of what it was exactly. The whole horror novels' bit, the black clothing (humor and all), the morbid fascination with death: it was everything that the monks of Azarath needed to calm her giddiness. It dulled the sharp feelings of joy that pierced her solemnity at every turn. And it was everything she wasn't.

So, slowly, she adopted the dark demeanor (she even had a book to help: How To Be A Cynic For Dummies… god, she'd die if he ever found that under her bed; she still needed it for reference and it was another reason why she didn't want anyone snooping around her room. The sarcasm, surprisingly, came naturally.). She was still adopting this persona when she met the rest of them and him, and it was also why she had laughed with him that one time. It was hard holding back her laughter; it was hard being around him and being unable to join in the fun. But she had to, had to maintain that balancing act. Had to throw him in the wall (though he does make a most delicious thump…), had to cut him down, had to, had to control herself. It was the only way.

And he just kept calling her that- Rae. Gods it ripped each one of her carefully entrenched defenses, eroded every chasm that she buried her joy in. Rae. Rae, Rae, Rae. Happy, peppy little Rae, cheerful Rae, hopeful Rae. He summoned all of that, through miles of barricade to the ever glowing delight that resided within her. And then she'd have to reel it all back, re-erect all of the ramparts that he so heedlessly trampled and summon anger to the fore to balance that thrice damned glee that bubbled to the surface whenever he showed that damnable grinning face of his. Weren't demons supposed to be predisposed toward anger and violence? Where did all this capricious joy come from?

Gods she hated the way he called her Rae.

"Hey Rae!"

…

No, really, she did.

…

Gods she hoped no one saw the blush painting her face.

End.


	2. Between Ravens and Tofu; a Star-crossed Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was a disaster in the kitchen, but she knew her tofu...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't know why I got fixated on food preparation, maybe because of Ratatouille. Anyways, I'm turning this thing into me oneshot reservoir for the Teen Titans. And no, I don't own jack.

Raven was a legend when it came to the kitchen. Not because she could cook, but because she couldn't. At all.

Sure, Starfire's creations were mutate-y and had a tendency to try to eat those trying to eat it, but at least her stuff comes out right occasionally (the rest of the Titans tend to believe that they came out right since Star seemed to enjoy scarfing the- delicacies down). Raven's stuff never came out right. Never.

In desperation, she turned to her trusty, kitchen-able friends.

She's tried to get cooking lessons from Cyborg. After she cleaned out the fridge of meat with nothing to show for it, besides a very much massacred kitchen, Cy refused to educate our favorite empath in the fine art of the food preparation (his words, as it were).

She'd turned to Robin next. It was a rather desperate gambit. Though Rob could cook, his stuff came out rather bland. It tasted right and all, but there was something very much missing. Probably because Robin never thought of cooking as an art form, not a line of passion could be found on his body when he handled the kitchen implements. They tried to prepare meat, they tried to prepare fruits and vegetables, and they even turned to vegetarian cuisine (she was utterly delighted at this turn of events but had no idea why her emoti-clones were so excited- even Rage's grumblings quieted to a simmering; she shrugged it off with a meh).

Every encounter was a disaster. One after the other, every single dish came out, without fail, to be inedible in one way or another. From being utterly revolting to being burned (how'd you manage that with a salad!!?) the disasters kept on piling up. But Robin, being Robin, stuck it out a little longer than Cyborg. After a week of the same thing happening over and over again, the fearless leader called it quits. Threw in the towel, so to speak. The fact that Raven's powers nearly brought down the tower from the pent up frustration might have affected the decision making process.

Finally, she turned to Starfire. If she couldn't make earth cuisine, maybe she should try her hand in un-earthly fare. This was a disaster to outdo all the other culinary disasters that came before. On the first try, the very first, Raven created an abomination that nearly ate the tower. Failing that (the two Titans were fiercely protective of their home), it had tried to make it to the mainland. The boys were pulled in to help stop the menace and it took the combined effort of all five of the core Titans to subdue the beast (funny enough, the thing was green).

After that disaster, she began to despair. She became more mope-y than was usual and began to turn to brooding. Her three teachers looked on sadly but didn't dare to even think about allowing Raven into the kitchen again.

Finally, Beast Boy intervened. After pranking her for a week straight and getting no response (not even a freakin' twitch), he'd had enough. Usually, Raven vented on him whenever he decided to pull one of these inanities on her (usually whenever he thought she was getting too down- he firmly ignored the voice in his head that told him he was suicidal and that only a love-struck idiot would pull things like that), but not this time. The green elf cornered the brooding sorceress and demanded that she spill. After holding out for five minutes, she caved and told of her misadventures in the Titan's place of food preparation (Starfire's words). Turns out, she was a demon in the kitchen and the apocalypse was going to come by neither fire or ice but former food stuff gorging on would-be diners (these were Raven's words).

After hearing of her plight, Beast Boy took it upon himself to getting her up to cooking snuff. He had no illusions of her becoming a world class chef thanks to his instruction (well, maybe a few), but he did want her to make a decent meal without have to go out (she couldn't utilize the microwave for anything other than heating a cup of tea when she was too lazy to properly steep it the old fashion way, with the kettle and all- the times she tried to prepare anything else had ended with an exploding microwave and a slightly radioactive kitchen).

They tried salads again, being simple and all.

No fire, no heat in the vicinity and she still burned the thing.

They tried fruit salads, the juice theoretically being able to counter any combustion that could show up.

It still came out burned.

They tried various vegetarian friendly foods (since the changeling refused to touch meat with a twelve meter pole). They looked to China, Japan, France, everywhere for recipes; nothing. She still burned or utterly ruined every dish. Raven was nearly hysterical from it all.

Then, then Beast Boy came up with the stupidest, most brilliant thing possible. He had her prepare tofu.

He had said there was no way anyone could prepare tofu wrong. He was slightly biased but Raven agreed all the same. After all, the fermented soy tasted so bad (to her, anyway) that the only way for it to go in matters of taste was up.

And miracle of miracles, they had found the solution to Raven's cooking problem.

Raven mixed with any other ingredient that could be found in a kitchen with cooking implements alone produced disaster. Raven with tofu and any ingredient that could be found in the kitchen (or out of it) with cooking implements produced ambrosia.

She was a goddess with the stuff. Somehow, somehow she knew what to throw in to a dish with tofu to create the most exquisite of flavors. She manipulated the texture like an artist touching up his canvas. The aroma was titillating and worked any saliva glands in proximity into overdrive. Even Cyborg praised it (that was before he knew it was tofu; after he did he ran to his shrine of meat and begged for forgiveness offering alms).

Robin, Starfire and Cyborg were delighted at Raven's achievement. Mostly relief on Cyborg's part, he still couldn't condone tofu, though he had to ask himself some very difficult questions (if it tasted like meat, if it felt like meat, but it wasn't meat, does that make it any less meaty?).

Beast Boy was utterly delighted. He saw few victories with his name attached to it. Didn't change the fact that he had them, though.

Raven was delighted to the point of being giddy. She had an excuse to share the meals that she prepared with a certain pointy eared green boy. Of course, she refused to admit to any such accusation. After all, she had a reputation to keep, even if it was to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a review would be nice...


End file.
